Allen Boyd Quotes

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

Lincoln, like Seward, had developed a cadre of lifelong friends who were willing to do anything in their power to ensure his nomination. But unlike Seward, he had not made enemies or aroused envy along the way.

A politician rises on the backs of his friends ... but it is through his enemies he will have to govern afterwards.

He survived politically for forty years. No matter what the issue was, it did not concern him. He knew that if he could call a man’s name in a crowd, shake hands with him and ask him about his wife and children, whose names were also in the little book, he had that man’s vote.

Nothing Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton did together will ever have as much impact on election results as the partisan makeup of congressional districts around the country.

Forty-eight hours is a long time in politics

I never had a political power base.

Usually, you know how politicians are. Whenever they are around, you will see at least 10-15 people by their side. But with Kamal Haasan, that's not the case.

Regardless of whether there was ballot manipulation or not, you still have 50 million people who voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. And why? Because he's fallible? Because he reminds you of us? That's what we do. We are hiring these people. They don't hire themselves. It's irresponsible to disregard this guy as some bumbling, blathering idiot who has no intelligence whatsoever.

In a strange way, Hillary Clinton was helped and victimized by Barack and Michelle Obama.Michelle Obama was probably better than Barack Obama, if you think about it.Her speech is a masterful, masterful speech. And she delivered it in a persuasively conversational tone.

I've heard this theory that this is basically Jeb's [Bush] people trying to get their supporters to basically put the stake in Marco Rubio because if people are talking about accepting [Donald] Trump over [Ted] Cruz, what they're really saying is Marco Rubio's no longer viable.

A political place with no power, only influence, is not to my taste.

Politics is about realities, not logic.

I understand what's going on in people's minds, and I think the political leaders better be asking themselves 'why is it, that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders and maybe even others are having the impact that they are having?'

Starting in 1994, with the Republican election of Congress, I think [Rush] Limbaugh made a difference in electing the Republican majority. In the following three elections, he made the difference holding the majority. And in 2000, in the presidential race in Florida, he was the difference between Gore and Bush winning Florida, and thus the Presidency.

Politics never takes a holiday in Chicago.

American politics can produce great men and women, but it is profoundly insular.

We shall have to begin all over again. [Taft hoped that] the Senators might change their minds, or that the people might change the Senate; instead of which they changed me.

Let's say Donald Trump loses but it's close. That could change the whole way the job of being a politician shifts - that to succeed in politics, you have to be a caricature of what a politician is supposed to be like.

I think that's what's - one of the things that is alarming to me is [Donald] Trump, and I think Trump supporters seem to believe, he won, huge upset, full credit to him, and has got the wind at his back. And Republicans on The Hill do want him to succeed, obviously, and they're deferring to him more than they deep down in private sort of wish - want to, but they are going to defer to him publicly for awhile. But I think that is going to run out faster than people think.

We're kind of in the wild west, and, you know, it would be very difficult to run for president without raising a huge amount of money and without having other people supporting you because your opponent will have their supporters.

The bottom line is that if politicians weren't in the business of granting favors and exacting tribute, every single issue surrounding campaign finance reform would be irrelevant. After all, why would anyone spend money for influence, access, favors and tribute if the only thing that politicians do is to live up to their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution?

In the sense of media saying this about themselves, I drive to my kids' school in upstate New York through rural Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York; [Donald] Trump signs everywhere.

That is enough to win a three-way presidential race. If young people understand they have the numbers and they have the power to come out and turn this election on its head.

I think the air is out of the gun control balloon, and I think what popped the balloon is politics and elections.